My name is Norah Taleb. I am a seventeen year old senior from Oakland, California who has been researching and following current events happening in the USA. Researching about what happened in Charlottesville, I have came to a deduction that this country is headed to a calamity. People are protesting against each other and killing each other about the removal of the Robert E. Lee statue. He supported slavery during the civil war.

I was born and raised in Oakland, California. Growing up, I always had this sense of patriotism.

I was always so proud to be in the best country of the world, and how proud I am to have been born in this country. But as a person of color, I quickly realized how unfortunate oppressed people of color have been since the creation of this country.

As I learned from my years in school, the land this country sits on is purloined land. I ask you to better treat the people of color since all the sacrifice they faced and sweat of their back, is what created that beautiful office you have. But dismally, it seems to have gotten worse.

How can you as leaders just sit around and let racism repeat itself? The removal of the Robert E. Lee monument was far and beyond. Yet people are evoked and protest against the removal. Do they not know that General Lee was pro-slavery? How can this country be at peace when slavery is taken in different forms?

Thank you for reading my letter. I wish to see alliance between different races. I wish to see our country be in peace with one another.

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About us

This is a youth-powered social network that was started in 2003 by a group of teachers from local sites of the National Writing Project.

We merged several earlier blogging projects. We have found that there are many advantages to bringing students together in one site that lives beyond any particular class. It's easier for individual students to read and write about their own passions, to connect with other students, comment on each other's work, and create multimedia posts for each other. Further, it's been exciting for us to pool our knowledge about curriculum, connected learning, and digital literacies.

If being part of such a community makes sense to you, we invite you to join us. We welcome all youth and any teacher interested in having students publish online and participate in the give and take of a social network like Youth Voices.